Managing Creativity

What are the challenges and opportunities of managing people in creative industries? How are the tensions between creative and commercial pressures mediated? The creative industries are an area of increasing economic importance. Yet creative industries and creative-based organizations are rife with problems such as whether and how control of the creative process should be exercised; the extent to which knowledge of creative production may be made explicit; and how the ‘connection’ between producer and consumer should be mediated. In Managing Creativity a team of experts from a diverse range of fields – including management, fine art, music, the internet, design, theatre and publishing – discuss these and other problems concerning the relationship between management and creativity. Developing an appreciation of these problems is theoretically productive, not only because it throws light onto our understanding of creative-based organizations, but also because it can be revelatory about organizations more generally.

Author Biography

Barbara Townley is Professor of Management and Director of the Institute for Capitalising on Creativity at the University of St Andrews. Her research concerns the introduction of managerial technologies (appraisal systems, business planning and performance measures) and the impact of these on institutional logics that inform organizational functioning. Her most recent book is Reason’s Neglect (2008). Nic Beech is Professor of Management at the University of St Andrews. He is the founding chair of the British Academy of Management special interest group on identity and co-chair of the Scottish Network on Organizational Vitality. His research is mainly focused on the social dynamics of organizational life – the intertwining of people’s identities, relationships and practices. He is co-author (with Eugene McKenna) of The Essence of HRM (2008, 2nd edition).